so
old-fashioned to up-to-date people. Now I'm going to be Mrs Napper,
when the Littlehampton season comes round, I'm going in exclusively for
smartness and fashion."

Mavis making as if she would go, and the disturbance not being finally
quelled, Miss Meakin begged Mavis to stay to lunch. She repeatedly
insisted on the word lunch, as if it conveyed a social distinction in
the speaker.

Mavis had got as far as the door, when it burst open and an elderly
woman of considerable avoirdupois broke into the room, to sink
helplessly upon a flimsy chair which creaked ominously with its burden.

Miss Meakin introduced this person to Mavis as her aunt, Mrs Scatchard,
and reminded the latter how Mavis had rescued her niece from the
clutches of the bogus hospital nurse in Victoria Street so many months
back.

"That you should call today of all days!" moaned the perspiring Mrs
Scatchard.

"Why not today?" asked her niece innocently.

"The day I'm disgraced to the neighbourhood by a 'visitor' being turned
out of doors."

"I knew nothing of it," protested Miss Meakin.

"And Mr Scatchard being a government official, as you might say."

"Indeed!" remarked Mavis, who was itching to be off.

"Almost a pillar of the throne, as you might say," moaned the poor
woman.

"True enough," murmured her niece.

"A man who, as you might say, has had the eyes of Europe upon him."

"Ah!" sighed Miss Meakin.

"And me, too, who am, as it were, an outpost of blood in this no-class
neighbourhood," continued Mrs Scatchard.

Mavis wondered when she would be able to get away.

"My father was a tax-collector," Mrs Scatchard informed Mavis.

"Indeed!" said the latter.

"And in a most select London suburb. Do you believe in blood?"

"I think so."

"Then you must come here often. Blood is so scarce in North Kensington."

"Thank you."

"Why not stay and have a bit of dinner?"

"Lunch," corrected Miss Meakin with a frown.

"We've a lovely sheep's heart and turnips," said Mrs Scatchard,
disregarding her niece's pained interruption.

Mavis thanked kindly Mrs Scatchard, but said she must be off. She was
not permitted to go before she promised to let Miss Meakin know the
result of her visit to Mr Napper.

Mavis spent three of her precious pennies in getting to the office of
Mr Keating, which was situated in a tiny court running out of Holborn.
Upon the first door she came to was inscribed "A.F. Keating, Solicitor,
Commissioner for Oa